Bellingham Review

Amusements, Public pg. 276 Anaconda

Among the alien corn stood Ruth in tears.The cycle of the earth turned to famine,she’s abandoned her home to glean foodoff foreign soil. A snake shedding skin:sometimes the only option is to start again.

At an amusement park, a child sitsatop a wooden horse. Her forced smile belies the caption:The Merry-Go-Round Makes Everyone Happy—not a reaction to the repeated song, or dizziness,but to the image on the opposite page:

Brazilian Natives Carry a Captured Anaconda. This massive reptile threads through the armsof four loin-clothed men. A fifth manhoists the heavy tail to his shoulder, has trouble.Anabasis—an expedition from coastline

to interior of a country—rarely a straight line.To search for food, to avoid predators, the four-eyed fishswims with its vision bisected—on top, the air;beneath, the water. Copper, zincsmelted in Anaconda, Montana. Alchemy

complements astrology. Ruled by metals,ruled by planets—the priestess of Pythonrests on the cleft of the Sibylline Rock, singsher predictions. How accurate are horoscopes:a bloodletting ceremony (See: anemia),

the splattered papers are burneduntil the Vision Serpent appears, or the patientdies. Long ago the earth was dry, it shattered—a clay pot. Then the flood came.A boat was built. Rivers rose. Under the overflow

grew a plant called The Old Man Becomesa Young Man. Once, a man held this plant—lost it to a snake. Still, he returned to the landof his mother, grandmother. Found his homein ruins. His family, in dust.

Home pg. 3500 Honduras

On page three-five-hundred, a birdwith a dark pack strapped to its back,not a pack, really, a tiny tube:a candle, or dynamite without a fuse,which is fascinating, this spark, this match-

less regression from today to the Ark.News from the bird that measured the weather:The water—high above the tree-tops, risinglike the future. No, that’s the past. Back, forth—antediluvian to ageless. Why

does the desire to return homeburn more than a machine-gun bulletto the breast, shrapnel in the leg? Homeis a prime number: e.g., seventy-one. One-hundred-thousand-three homing pigeons

were used in World War I. The Frenchused pigeons, Cher Ami, the Germanshad hawks to catch the pigeons. This bird,caught on this page, on a wooden perch,motionless between homicide and Honduras.

walks down the street, talks into his palm.Psalms, the homily—a fashionable lesson:when killing’s an accident, it’s right,it’s justifiable. This string of thought windsaround the world, the suffocating winds

of the equator. Also homonyms: pray and prey.The Spanish landed in Honduras, named itDepths. Circled its shores, searchedfor shallow waters to drop their anchorin the New World, in this, their new home.